There has been a lot of buzz about the recently opened Marina Abramović exhibition at the Royal Academy. “Terrifying and vital” was Adrian Searle’s verdict on the Serbian performance artist’s retrospective. Well, as it happens, I have tickets to go this week and I am definitely terrified.
The show made headlines when it emerged that visitors must squeeze sideways between a nude male and female model to gain access to the exhibition. It’s not the nudity that bothers me – as a user of communal gym changing rooms, I have seen it all. Nor am I fazed by whether to make eye contact with the models or not as my eyes will be closed. This means the other tricky choice about whether to face the man or the woman as I move between their bodies won’t be an issue. No, what freaks me out is the potential transmission of germs. Why is nobody else worried about this?
